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DON BRENNAN, QMI Agency

Jun 14, 2011

, Last Updated: 9:46 PM ET

OTTAWA - They called him Mac, but he was also known as “Grizz.”

“He was a little snarly sometimes,” Jim Kyte, a teammate of Paul MacLean’s with the Winnipeg Jets, said Tuesday. “He was a happy-go-lucky guy as well, but during a game, if anyone messed with Dale (Hawerchuk), Grizz was right there.”

With the size, demeanour and moustache that made him as intimidating as a Grizzly.

Earlier in the day, MacLean stood at a Scotiabank Place podium in front of the Ottawa media for the first time as the Senators’ new coach, wearing a nice suit and a bead of sweat or two rolling down the side of his face.

At 53, he still looks like someone you wouldn’t want to cross. Maybe part of it is the ’stache, which is as bushy as ever.

The first question MacLean was asked had to do with the hair on his upper lip. He kidded he was born with it.

“It’s just something that I had, I started, and it’s just there,” he said later. “I’m not sure if it’s a trademark. I guess it is, because everyone is talking about it. But to me it was just a moustache. It wasn’t a Lanny McDonald thing, it wasn’t my dad, it wasn’t anybody. You should see my brother’s. His is pretty good, too. Little whiter than mine, though.”

His brother, Jerome, lives in Ottawa. So does his sister Karen.

“Don’t give them too much press, though,” he joked.

Their profile in the community is about to rise enough, as is. Never before have they had to answer a “what’s wrong with the Senators” question.

When he told his siblings over dinner Monday night that he was stepping into the line of fire as Cory Clouston’s successor, they suggested he might want to rethink the offer.

“I told (Jerome), ‘Your life just changed,’ ” said MacLean. “Their life is going to be way harder than mine. It’s going to be easier for me. I’m going to be here every day and I’m going to work. They’ve got to put up with it more than I think I will as they go through their daily lives. But they’re excited about it, too.”

MacLean’s local roots also include a couple of cousins who have moved here from Nova Scotia. And, of course, his junior hockey days.

At the age of 19, he remembers the Olympiques making him the last pick of the QMJHL draft.

“Aurele Gagne was the manager and Guy Trottier was the coach,” he said. “I made Aurele Gagne promise me that I could be at the training camp for two weeks before they would cut me. I came from Antigonish, N.S., and I was there for two days and Guy Trottier wanted to cut me. I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t skate very well and didn’t get around the ice very good.

“In one of the last scrimmages, I ended up being lucky enough to put three pucks in the net and I think I got into a little dust-up with somebody, (something) that I wasn’t really good at, and I ended up getting in a fight, (scoring) three goals. Guy loved me that day. By the end of the two weeks, I was on the team, I was able to play with a great bunch of guys. Daniel Metivier was a phenomenal player back in that day. He scored 50 goals by Christmas. He got drafted by Montreal. Claude Larochelle got drafted by L.A. I got drafted to the St. Louis Blues.

“It was quite an experience for me, being 19 years old and being able to go to Hull. I lived with a great family, Charlie and Kathleen McCann in Hull who were my billets and are still very dear to me today.”

The glory days of his decade-long playing career in the NHL were the seven seasons he spent with the Jets. For most of them, he was Hawerchuk’s right winger. In his last season as a Jet, their line also included Andrew McBain, who would later become a Senator.

“The only regret I would have,” he said of his time in Winnipeg, “and John Ferguson, God rest his soul, said the same thing about me ... He said that whoever plays with Dale Hawerchuk should score 50 goals. I said Fergie, ‘you’re right, they should.’ But I get you 40.

“I was able to do that with Dale for three of those years.”

The most productive former NHLer to ever coach the Senators, MacLean had 673 points (324 goals) and 968 penalty minutes in 719 games. In his worst full season, he scored 27 goals. In eight others, he had at least 32.

“The game is a little bit generational,” said MacLean, “but when I played in the ’80s it was still a hard league to play in. It was still the best league in the world and you had to be a good player to play in it. Those everyday struggles of being a consistent player game in and game out, along with the travelling, those things haven’t really changed that much. Play a few more games now, I think, but it’s still the same. So having played and gone through the experiences, even though it’s a long time ago ... I’m not going to say I was an elite player in the league, but I was OK.”

The new Senators coach and his wife Sharon have three kids — A.J., David and Erin. The 27-year-old A.J. spent last season with the Dundee Stars of the Elite Ice Hockey League — in the U.K.

The Senators’ new coach looks tough, but he’s also a personable guy who likes to tell stories and have a beer. He’s someone you would like.

Of course, you’re also going to want him to win.

The Senators’ new coach has never before held a similar position in the NHL, but he has an impressive resume that includes a 374-205-59 record as a bench boss in the minors, as well as nine seasons as an assistant in Phoenix, Anaheim and Detroit.

As a former player who, in truth, was better than “OK,” he also has a lot of credibility.